"Yes, soil and lake, those two words together basically mean 'mire,'" Luna said dreamily, stroking the wooden carving in her hand. "Like you said today, if Slytherin's home was in the eastern mire of Ireland, a thousand years later, it would probably be unrecognizable."
"But the oak trees have life in them. As long as they aren't completely destroyed, they'll continue to live on this land."
"You're right." Victor nodded in agreement. "I remember that in the Wicklow Mountains today, there weren't many places where oak forests grew. If we combine that with the clue about the mire, maybe we can look for the oak forests in the plains or low-lying areas tomorrow."
Luna smiled and nodded, then finally put the crab leg she was holding into her mouth. She was immediately amazed. "This taste… it's very similar to what Zoe gave me to eat last time."
"Don't let that girl Zoe lead you astray. What she gave you was a Fire Crab I was raising in my kitchen," Victor said, his face darkening.
That mischievous girl was as bold as they come, daring to sneak into his private kitchen to steal ingredients. It had made him so mad that he had opened a jar of Billywig jam and stuffed it into her mouth.
It was at that moment, as she looked at the sweet, snow-white crab meat in her hand, that Luna's eyes suddenly became distant, and she changed the subject. "Do you think this meat could lure out a Moon Frog?"
"Um… perhaps we could try that after the moon comes out," Victor said, a bead of cold sweat trickling down his forehead.
Hearing this, Luna looked up at the night sky, where the moon was bright and the stars were sparse.
Time quickly passed to the next day.
Both of them had slept very well the night before, so they woke up early. (If you're thinking of anything else, go find a piece of bread to smash your head into, your mind's been dosed with a Love Potion.)
After getting up and washing, Victor and Luna had a simple breakfast, then flew on their eagle to an oak forest in the Wicklow Mountains.
They were now in the largest oak forest in the Wicklow Mountains.
It was located in a flat, low-lying area and had been rarely visited by people for many years.
So, if Slytherin's legacy was in the mire that Hogni had mentioned, this place was the most likely candidate.
Walking on the thick layer of dead branches and leaves, Victor activated his Hawkeye and X-ray Vision, carefully searching the surroundings as he walked.
Before long, he saw that something was buried underground not far away.
"Luna…" Victor called the name of the person behind him, but he got no response.
He turned around in confusion, and what he saw made him freeze.
Luna was following not far behind him, gathering a huge pile of acorns and stuffing them into her clothes.
In that instant, an image of an animal popped into Victor's mind: the squirrel from Ice Age who caused and ended the apocalypse by chasing an acorn.
"Luna, why are you picking so many acorns?" Victor asked, walking over to her curiously.
"They're very delicious. There are a lot near my house, but the squirrels there don't seem to like it when I take their food," Luna said, as she shelled an acorn and held it up to Victor's mouth. "Would you like to try one?"
"Thanks." Victor readily accepted, curling his lips to take the acorn.
After chewing it a few times, he found that eating the raw acorn was a little bitter at first, but it had a sweet aftertaste. Perhaps it could be used to make a special dessert.
Victor pulled out a bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm from his pocket, helped Luna put all the collected acorns inside, and then said, "I found something underground over there. It seems to be the ruins of an ancient building, which might be helpful to us."
He then led Luna to a tall oak tree.
Some of the oak tree's roots were exposed on the surface, covered by many shrubs and weeds, showing no trace of human activity.
"Overgrowth."
Victor slapped his hand down, and the magic circle of Nature Magic instantly unfolded.
From the center of the green magic circle, thick vines slowly pushed the deeply buried ruins, along with large chunks of mud, out of the ground.
Soon, Victor and Luna walked over and saw that what was hanging on the vines were some exquisite marble ruins, with simple patterns carved on them. From their shape, they could tell that they were part of a small building.
"These look like they could be put back together," Luna observed.
Victor nodded without a word, and then two magic circles, one blue and one green, slowly rotated in the palms of his hands.
A huge water sac wrapped around the pristine marble components and the mud. Then, like a high-speed washing machine, the water in the sac began to wash and peel away the dirt from the marble components one by one.
Before long, a crooked, roofless marble gazebo appeared before them.
The marble foundation of the gazebo had two steps on all four sides, with four exquisite load-bearing pillars at the corners. In the center of the base, a heavy stone tablet was inlaid.
"Look!" Luna walked to the stone tablet, her pale fingers lightly stroking the ancient, incomplete patterns on it. "There are words and patterns on it, but they're all damaged."
Victor also walked over and crouched down. Following Luna's finger, he saw that there were many incomplete characters on the stone tablet. From the style, they were an ancient Celtic language, but the patterns were severely damaged. Aside from some carvings that looked like animals, the rest were completely indistinguishable.
In addition, there were two places on the stone tablet where the cracks were clearly in a spiderweb shape, which seemed to have been formed by a heavy blow from a blunt object, like a hammer.
Victor reached out and rubbed these web-like cracks, then began to speculate. "Marble is a hard material. Given the thickness of this stone tablet, and these marks, it would be impossible for a human to have done this much damage!"
"Did the people back then encounter something powerful?" Luna asked.
"It's hard to say," Victor gently shook his head. "Based on the historical context of the time, Slytherin's era was a time of intense conflict between tribes and nations, and different religious civilizations. Smashing the stone tablet could have just been an act of simple destruction."
Sensing that a major battle might have taken place here more than a thousand years ago, and that there should be some related remnants, Victor once again activated his Eye Magic to search the surroundings.
Sure enough, there were many other fragments of buildings buried underground around the place where the gazebo was found, but most of them were not marble, they were ordinary stones. In addition, he also found some weapon fragments and various unknown remains.
And among these remains, Victor found some bones that were particularly conspicuous.
The green magic circle lit up again, and white bones emerged from the ground.
Soon, countless gigantic white bones floated in front of the two of them.
"It's incredible! What kind of animal's bones are these?" Luna asked in surprise, looking at the various jumbled bones floating in the air.
"I don't know, but they're definitely not from any ordinary animal," Victor replied, frowning and looking thoughtful.
The bones in front of them were clearly from the same species and were very large. The thinnest of the bones had a cross-section diameter of about ten centimeters, too big to be held with both hands, and their shape was very similar to human skeletons.
Since Victor found these bones to be a little special, he immediately decided to put them back together.
But because he wasn't a professional and didn't know much about the structure of biological skeletons, he could only put together a rough outline based on his own feeling.
Ten minutes later, a humanoid skeleton nearly eight meters tall appeared before them.
"It's so big!" Luna exclaimed, craning her neck. "Is it a giant?"
"It should be, but it's much larger than the giants we know of. And there's something strange: its head seems to have horns that ordinary giants don't have," Victor said, stroking his chin as he looked up and down at it.
Now, the number of giants in the world is very small, probably fewer than a dozen in total.
They usually live in the high-latitude tundra regions, feeding on fish, deer, and sheep. They are about three to five meters tall, similar in size to Trolls, but their intelligence is much higher, no different from Merpeople.
However, this so-called giant in front of them seemed to be different from the existing giants. In terms of size alone, it was more than just a little bit bigger.
"I think it's what smashed the stone tablet. The Celts once fought against giants," Luna guessed, then looked at the broken gazebo. "But now it looks like the Celts lost."
"You're right, I have a feeling we're in the right place," Victor nodded in agreement.
So, in order to figure out the true identity of the owner of these bones, Victor packed up all the bones, which he believed were from a giant, then created a Thought Projection and sent it to find Professor Scamander.
Afterward, he put the marble fragments to the side, and Victor and Luna continued to walk deeper into the oak forest.
Unfortunately, after walking for a long time, they were about to walk out of the oak forest, but they didn't find anything else.
"This doesn't make sense. Besides the place that looks like a Celtic tribal ruin, there's nothing else?" Victor frowned, turning to look at the oak forest behind him. "This just doesn't feel right."
"Parseltongue…"
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